The PHP/MySQL that drives the backend is a very mature, well-supported architecture. The front-end user experience is starting to show its age, however, as we see more single page web apps (SPA). Compared to an SPA, the traditional WordPress experience is slow, as it depends on full page reloads with every click.
When Matt Mullenweg last spoke to the Seattle WordPress Meetup, the one thing he shared about his vision of the future was that developers will be interacting with a client-side API. This approach will allow us to leverage the powerful WordPress backend to write single page web apps that respond very quickly to the user.
The future is now right around the corner. The next slated release, version 4.1 will include a JSON REST API in the core.
Using this API will be familiar to many developers. For example, if you want to retrieve your site’s posts simply send a get request to:
http://example.com/wp-json/posts
and get an object back with all your posts. Updating user #5 is as straightforward as sending a post request to:
/wp-json/users/5
Filtering for posts would make a get request from:
wp-json/posts?filter[s]=awesome
There is very good documentation and more information available on the plugin page.
Come see a live demo of how to build one of these shiny new apps. I will be presenting at the October 15 WordPress Meetup. During the workshop we will build a theme using the AngularJS framework. The same principles will apply if you choose to use Backbone, Ember, Knockout, or any other front-end framework.
Dean Wenick is a web designer and developer and a graduate of the Code Fellows Full-Stack JavaScript program.